Category: Fela Kuti

There are records that feel like documents and there are records that feel like contraband. Live in Detroit 1986 sits firmly in the latter… a tape smuggled out of the room, dubbed and redubbed into soft focus until the hiss becomes a third rhythm section. Captured less than a year after Fela Kuti’s release from prison, at Detroit’s Fox Theatre during his first U.S. tour, the set lands with a charged, itinerant electricity: part exorcism, part declaration.

Check out a fantastic documentary that follows Fela Anikulapo Kuti and his huge band/entourage (70+ people!) on their first trip across the European continent in 1981. Things look gray and grimy outside, but once Africa 80 is onstage the world snaps into full, vibrant color, a radical sight/sound the likes of which most of the world had never seen nor heard before.

Music is the weapon. The past ten or so years have witnessed a western appreciation of Fela Kuti that would have seemed implausible just a decade prior. From the Broadway success of the Fela! musical, to the ongoing celebrity-endorsed reissue series, Kuti’s music, and (with it) message have reached a far broader audience than ever achieved during the Nigerian musician’s own lifetime.

Clocking in at an incredibly potent 53 minutes, Music Is The Weapon was shot in Lagos in 1982 chronicling the Nigerian juggernaut that was Fela Kuti. Helmed by French director/cinematographer Jean-Jacques Flori, the film surrounds itself with the interchangeable […]

As part of my ongoing weekly contribution to Rhino’s ‘rhinofy’ project, this week I put together a twenty track Fela playlist. You can hit it up, here . The playlist was (partly) inspired by Kuti’s 1980 collaboration […]

Reissues are nothing new.   But last year, when news of the promise of the reissued Fela Kuti catalog surfaced, there was reason to get excited. The newly resurfaced Knitting Factory Records is responsible for the comprehensive catalog overhaul. […]

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